Summary of last Chapter:
- Adolphus kills his greatmother Ida and destroys the main wardstone room allowing the death eaters to swarm in
- Jonathan's assistand Harvey LLoyd and two security guards, Miriam Scrimgeour and Archibald Derrick, are sent to investigate what happened, they stumble upon another security guard, Roberto Sanchez. Jonathan sends security guard Malcom Wonka to St. Mungos to get a healer.
- Harvey, Archibald, Miriam and Roberto arrive at the crime scene where Adolphus gloats about having killed Ida. Roberto reveals himself to be a traitor and kills Harvey after which a battle starts. Roberto is killed and Adolphus is injured by his enraged grandfather Hermes.
- Malcom Wonka along with three healers and two aurors enter the Courthouse having arrived from St. Mungos, they quickly stumble upon arriving death eaters and Auror Riker aswell as Healer Trainees Wesley Crusher and Pippa Filmor are quickly sent back to spread the word of the attack as Auror Umbridge and Healer Annabeth Eisenhower face the death eaters
Chapter 24:
Patch Notes:
Pippa Filmor now addresses Wesley Crusher correctly in Chapter 23
Reviews please?
October 4th 1976, Pyrites Courthouse:
The emergency wards had been activated, they gave the Pyrites protection from more intruders couldn't do anything against those already inside the wards however and prevented them from apparating to another location if they wanted to do it quickly. It would likely take up to a minute of mental preparation until one could apparate through these wards.
Jonathan was sprinting down the staircase and on the third floor when he saw robed and masked people sneaking up the staircase.
'Death eaters' he thought with a grimace 'Shit how were they able to get someone in and disable the wards?' he had no time to further ponder about the question as the pillar next to him exploded and he got cut by a few of the splinters.
'The others are capable duelers they will be able to handle themselves, I need to retreat to a better position' he thought and went back up and down the corridor in a hurry until he and his wife blossom bumped into eachother when they both ran around the corner at the same time.
„Blossom dear, get back to the conference room we have visitors" he told her and she knew exactly what he meant.
„But Johnny we need to help the others, think about the twins!" she admonished him but she saw why that wouldn't be possible as 6 death eaters exited the staircase and started firing spells at them.
Augustus was in a rush to finally taste some blood again. He had been told by young Adolphus that Lord and Lady Pyrites were likely to be on the fourth floor in the conference room waiting for Adolphus so Augustus decided that he and his fellow death eaters Corban Yaxley, Dedalus Rosier, Benjamin Nott, Priscilla Dolloway, Leonardo Pennington, Josephine Selwyn, Chandler Abercrombie, Camilla Pucey and Rosalie Westonbridge would go to the fourth floor to deal with the two Pyrites. They sneaked up the staircase having left the others at the first floor and were now on their way to the second floor. Passing the exit Augustus saw the Pyrites boy who was in their pocket defending himself against three opponents.
„Selwyn, Abercrombie, Pucey, Westonbridge help the guy out we will deal with the other two at the top" he told his subordinates and they nodded at him before exiting the staircase to help out their ally.
The moment they joined the fight the Pyrites boy was heavily injured by his grandfather, Camilla winced as she saw the wounds on the young boy.
„Westonbridge take care of him we'll deal with our enemies" she said and turned around to shield against a piercing curse. Then the fight between the two groups began. They saw the female security guard with the nametag 'Scrimgeour' conjure two panthers that rushed at them. Chandler threw a potion at them which exploded on impact and killed the panthers immediately. Both sides turned to less creative spells after a while knowing that they had to conserve their magical reserves. Josephine looked at the young Pyrites who was getting treated by Rosalie. Rosalie saw Josephine looking at her and gave a report.
„He is heavily injured, I think we need to get him to safety, can't have him dying in our care after all, Rockwood would certainly blame us when he reports to our Lord"
Josephine knew that the young Pyrites was important, her Lord needed Mr. Pyrites to have the votes in the Wizengamot on his side. Looking at their three opponents she knew they were in a bit of a pickle, they had a slight advantage in numbers but Hermes Pyrites was an absolute beast and flicked many of their spells aside like it was nothing. She then had an idea.
„Westonbridge take the boy once I have created a distraction and get downstairs to the others, we will follow you. Pucey, Abercrombie cover me"
After receiving affirmations from her associates, Josephine sent multiple bombardas at the wall near their opponents causing the wall to explode. The sound of the explosion resounded throughout the courthouse.
The smoke and rubble allowed Rosalie to gather Adolphus into her arms and the group to make a retreat downstairs.
Levithian Umbridge was nervous, he and several of his associates were currently fighting his grandfather and some middle aged healer but said healer was surprisingly skilled and used spells whose effects he wasn't able to recognise and she did so silently. What kind of healer was this skilled in dueling?
Silence, absolute silence. This was the noise level Augustus and the others forced themselves to maintain in order to avoid getting any attention by inhabitants while they sneaked upstairs. It was unfortunate then that a man Augustus recognised as Lord Pyrites appeared on the fourth floor entrance to the staircase and quickly went down. They hoped he would just go into the hallway of the third floor but no he apparently wanted to go down further but as soon as he tried he saw the group around Augustus.
„Shit" he heard someone of his group mutter. One of them, probably Nott, decided it would be a good idea to start the fight on their terms and fired a spell at the man. Augustus' associate missed in their panic however and hit only the pillar besides Lord Pyrites which exploded and lightly injured the Lord's face. Instead of retaliating however, the man just grimaced slightly and went back up the stairs. Augustus realised after a few seconds that noone of his associates had moved an inch. He turned around to see them looking questioningly at him.
„By Merlin, what are you guys waiting for? Don't let him escape" he said admonishing them. They nodded and went upstairs with him following.
„What do you think is going on?" Roxanna holding the twins in her arms asked her husband Calvin . She had been silent the last few minutes to hear what was going on. Hermes, her father in law, who had been with them had already gone outside to look for Johnathan and to see what was going on but he hadn't come back yet.
„I don't know Roxy, but I cannot imagine that father looked so worried for no reason" he replied to her. „I can see you're worried about the twins and Merlin I am aswell but we cannot do anything rash alright?"
„I am aware of that Calvin but.." she wasn't able to speak further as an explosion rocked the floor they were on.
„Merlin what was that?" Roxanna asked worriedly.
„Okay scratch not doing anything rash. We're gonna wait for father to come back and then make a run for it alright?" Calvin replied.
„Merlin you think it's that bad? We don't know if anything happened yet" she replied but in that very moment the door opened and in came her father in law.
„We have intruders, Atleast a dozen death eaters. Mr. Sanchez was a traitor and managed to kill Mr. Lloyd but has been dealt with, the explosion got Ms. Scrimgeour, Mr. Derrick is thankfully still alive but needs a healer as soon as possible. No idea where Ms. Hopkins, Mr. Clockside and Mrs. Turpin are. Son, get your wife and the twins out of the manor anyway you can. The hallway to the staircase is blocked so jump out the window if you find no other way. I will cover your escape should it come to that. Understood?"
Augustus knew that as soon as his group engaged the elder Pyrites that this would be no piece of cake. Pennington had to find that out the hard way just two minutes into the fight as a cutting curse courtesy of Lady Pyrites cut his wand arm off after which he fell screaming to the ground. It was now four against two as Dolloway took care of the injured Pennington while the rest of them continued fighting. Augustus dodged a blasting curse from Lord Pyrites. This was weirdly the only offensive move of the elderly man so far however as he other than that focused on protecting himself and his wife who dished out curses and hexes like there was no tomorrow.
'Merlin how large are her magical reserves? There's no way she thinks she and her husband can actually defeat the four of us' he thought bewilderedly.
Hannelore 'Hannah' Hopkins nee Zimmermann was in the emergency wardstoneroom with her colleagues Kelly Turpin and Reef Clockside.
Small Interlude
The 36 year old muggleborn witch had originally been born in Germany but her father had been convicted because of... certain things he did in a certain war that the allies hadn't liked too much.
She remembered her mother crying about the unfairness that her 'sweet Eberhardt' was a prisoner of war in a Russian gulag. Anyway Anneliese, her mother, had abandoned Hannelore when she was only 6 years old after Hannah's first incident of accidental magic had freaked her out. But people knew that Hannah was Anneliese's daughter and brought the case to Dennis Wilson, one of the British soldiers stationed in Oldenburg at the time. He had brought Hannah back to her mother who refused to take the 'Dämonenkind' or demon child back in. When Dennis asked for clarification Anneliese told him how Hannah had made a plate of foot fly into her face. Dennis, a muggleborn wizard himself who had done his duty to the King, knew a case of accidental magic when he saw one. Hannah knew that Dennis then adopted her as his after he had obliviated her mother.
12 years later saw her graduating from Hogwarts with top marks in DADA and Dueling which had still been a subject back then. She had been horrible in Potions however and thus wasn't able to become an auror. Most places in the Ministry and larger shops were reserved for purebloods and so she worked in the muggle world for a few years until she got the opportunity to become a secretary for Logenal Fudge, the Head of the Department for Magical Games and Sports of the time. Logenal was a middle aged man who liked the looks of the then 26 year old Hannah and began to harrass her after some time. She rejected all of his advances and after a year he gave up on trying to convince her to become his mistress and held her under the imperius to make her comply. She managed to escape the imperius after 2 years of misery however and quickly took him to court. This had been a massive mistake on her part however, not only was Fudge cleared off all charges, Hannah was thrown into Azkaban for two years for trying to smear the name of a proper pureblood.
When she came back out in 1971 she had changed and with her Magical Britain. You-Know-Who was becoming more and more feared and this created new job offers, mainly for security guards. And so 4 years ago Hannah became the first security guard of the Pyrites' family and didn't regret her decision one bit so far. The Pyrites' were a surprisingly tolerant and friendly pureblood family which got Hannah's loyalty in no time. Hannah began to genuinely care about the wellbeing of the family and suffered along with the Pyrites when the vibrant Evelyn was killed recently.
End of Small Interlude
An explosion rocked the manor and Hannah and woke up her colleagues that were with her in the room. She explained to them what happened and they looked at eachother.
„What should we do?" asked Turpin and Clockside replied with „Nuffin".
He didn't elaborate at her questioning gaze and so Hannah made that her job.
„I know you're pretty new here so I'll explain it to you" she told the witch who nodded thankfully „Our orders from Lord Pyrites are to stay here during our shift and take turns being awake, yes you knew that already. Now comes the tricky part. The wardstones responsible for the emergency wards activated roughly 6 minutes ago but that could be because Lord Pyrites decided to lower them for some reason. However the explosion made this an emergency and it is now our duty to defend the room as long as possible until one of our bosses comes down to relieve us or until 2 hours passed."
Annabeth cursed as Auror Umbridge went down screaming and twitching in pain after being hit with a cruciatus.
Levithian couldn't believe it, one of his associates was torturing his grandfather. He was furious, how dare whoever it was do that to a pureblood? Charles Merriweather in the chaos of battle never noticed the killing curse coming from behind him. Levithian on the other hand had no time to react to the killing curse coming his way.
Now it was Annabeth's turn to not believe what she just saw, one of the death eaters was just killed by one of his allies. The death eater responsible was promptly killed by another death eater, what was going on?
'Well I'm certainly not going to complain' she thought as her alone against the remaining 3 was hard enough. Within the minute though she realised that she wouldn't be able to defend herself much longer. Gathering the rest of her magical reserves she yelled „Pestis Incendium" and flooed back to St. Mungos after looking at the magical fire for a moment. Just a short moment though, you really didn't want to joke around with fiendfyre.
„Mr. Derrick just take a look at yourself you really should be resting right now, why haven't you flooed to St. Mungos?" asked an annoyed but concerned Roxanna. Archibald was indeed quite the sight, he had lost more than just a little blood and was partially grey and white from the rubble and smoke created by the explosion.
„There is commotion both downstairs and upstairs, all the others are busy and I don't think any other floor besides the one at that moment was safe, not that our own floor should be any safer aswell" Archibald replied with a sigh.
„So the floo is blocked?" asked Calvin.
„That seems to be the case sir. I am not 100% sure but I wouldn't take my chances"
Archibald took a seat but didn't put his wand away and warily looked at the door leading to the second floor corridor. Death eaters could come through it any moment now.
„That's unfortunate then. Calvin, Roxanna, Archibald the moment we're attacked in here you're going to take the twins and get them to safety, do whatever you have to do to accomplish that" Hermes said after a while. Calvin and Roxanna nodded as Hermes' strategy made sense, Archibald didn't like the strategy too much however.
„Sir with all due respect I will have to refuse that order. I will stay here and help defend what I am being paid for to defend" Archibald said and Hermes just looked at him with a thankful and understanding look.
A roar could be heard directly below them followed by a warming of the ground beneath their feet. Hermes quickly came to the realisation that something huge must have happened.
„Merlin who in their right mind uses fiendfyre in a confined area?" Hermes asked confused.
„We need to get away Blossom, let's take the fight to the conference room" Johnathan muttered just lout enough for his wife to hear him. She nodded and they went around the corner, the same corner where they had previously bumped into eachother, sprinting to the conference room but not before Blossom left a few surprises for the people she knew would be coming after them.
„What the hell is going on here?" exclaimed Junior Auror Jordan Pyke being the first one to see the fiendfyre wreaking havoc on the Pyrites' entrance hall. His Senior Auror partner Andres Shellford who had begun on taking on the magical fire replied
„Less cursing more helping Auror Pyke". More and more Aurors appeared through the fireplace and helped extinguishing the fiendfyre. They managed to finally accomplish that a minute later and once they did they looked at the greatly damaged entrance hall of the Pyrites Courthouse.
„Look one of ours got here before us, why was he alone here?" asked Junior Auror Christopher Weasley pointing at a corpse of a male auror which was near the corner of the entrance hall.
„That must be Auror Umbridge, Auror Riker said that his partner remained behind to clear the entrance hall for any aurors coming in to assist the Pyrites" said Christopher's partner Senior Auror Rufus Scrimgeour. He was in a bad mood, he knew his sister was here as a security guard at this time of the day.
'Couldn't the death eaters attack another family? Why must it be the family my sister is guarding?' he complained inside his head. He walked towards his fellow auror.
„Hmmm looks like Auror Umbridge isn't dead after all, only unconscious" Rufus mused and saw the questioning gaze of his junior partner „He is still breathing Weasley, Rennervate!"
Orsulus Umbridge awoke to a lot of pain and to his body shivering from the after effects of the cruciatus, he hadn't been under the unforgivable spell for longer than a few seconds, but that had been enough, the cruciatus was banned for good reason.
„Ugh some bastard of the death eaters likes torturing people a little too much, he sadly got me" Orsulus groaned and could see Auror Scrimgeour in front of him with a sympathetic expression „Thanks for waking me up" he said expressing his gratefulness to which he received a nod from his fellow senior auror.
„Sir we have counted 5 deceased death eaters, 2 were hit with the killing curse while 3 were burned by the fiendfyre" Auror Pyke reported.
„Wait a minute" exclaimed Orsulus „Killing curses? Fiendfyre? Who were they fighting against? With me at the time was only Healer Eisenhower" he said confused.
„Well from what I know she and her family immigrated from the colonies fairly recently, maybe nobody told her that the killing curse is an unforgivable yet. But yeah she must have been really desperate to use fiendfyre" Senior Auror Indigo Harlemshake remarked.
„Well let's go then, we have 4 floors + the basement to clear" Auror Scrimgeour said. As fate would have it they wouldn't be able to even leave towards the staircase as the main entrance door was bashed in and around a dozen werewolves swarmed in.
Josephine Selwyn, Chandler Abercrombie, Camilla Pucey and Rosalie Westonbridge were downstairs in one of the rooms and were protecting the young Pyrites boy who earlier had fallen unconscious. The original plan was to wait for reinforcements and then reengage the Pyrites on the second floor.
'Well this is certainly not going to happen now, it will take a while before our associates in the entrance hall have overwhelmed the large group of aurors' thought Josephine. She looked at her associates.
„We cannot wait any longer, we need to deal with the Pyrites family member and his security guard I saw on the second floor"
„Right we were specifically told to only leave Mr. Pyrites alive unless he tells us that others can be spared" replied Abercrombie.
„Agreed" said Pucey, the unofficial leader of the group „We will go back to the second floor immediately, Westonbridge I want you to stay here and make sure that we don't lose Mr. Pyrites here"
Rosalie nodded at the command and stayed in the room while the other three sneaked back up the staircase.
**End of Chapter**
Characters in this chapter and the amount of chapters they have appeared in so far:
- Jonathan Pyrites (4)
- Blossom Pyrites (1)
- Augustus Rockwood (4)
- Corban Yaxley (1)
- Dedalus Rosier (1)
- Benjamin Nott (1)
- Priscilla Dolloway (1)
- Leonardo Pennington (1)
- Josephine Selwyn (1)
- Rosalie Westonbridge (1)
- Chandler Abercrombie (1)
- Camilla Pucey (1)
- Adolphus Pyrites (3)
- Hermes Pyrites (2)
- Miriam Scrimgeour (2)
- Archibald Derrick (2)
- Levithian Umbridge (1)
- Roxanna Pyrites (2)
- Calvin Pyrites (1)
- Hannelore Hopkins (1)
- Kelly Turpin (1)
- Reef Clockside (1)
- Orsulus Umbridge (2)
- Annabeth Eisenhower (2)
- Jordan Pyke (1)
- Andres Shellford (1)
- Christopher Weasley (1)
- Rufus Scrimgeour (1)
- Indigo Harlemshake (1)